Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has revealed a massive drop in profits as sales of its Wii console took a nosedive in the absence of new games.
Despite this, Nintendo is pressing ahead with new device models, including a larger-screen Nintendo DS that will be 4.2 inches and will retail for around US$222. Nintendo said the screen of the new games console is 93pc larger than the existing Nintendo DS Lite.
Nintendo said last night that its interim profits fell by more than half to US$770 million from US$1.5 billion a year earlier.
Revenues fell to US$6 billion while operating profits fell 58.6pc to US$1.14 billion.
Nintendo, which compete against the PlayStation 3 console and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, sold 5.7 million Wii consoles in the last half of the year, down from 10.1 million a year earlier.
It is understood that a slowdown in the number of new games titles for the console is damaging demand. The company recently reduced the price of the console by a fifth in an effort to stimulate sales.
By John Kennedy
